Well over two months have passed since the United Kingdom voted to exit the European Union, a decision that left the country’s fisheries and seafood sectors with many pressing questions. With politicians only beginning to discuss and seek crucial stakeholder advice on the potential implications that the departure will have on U.K. fisheries in recent days, the industry remains very much at the start of a long, unchartered journey.
Teresa May, the United Kingdom’s newly installed prime minister, pledged soon after taking office that “Brexit means Brexit,” and vowed that she intended to make a success of the country’s decision, even though there would almost certainly be some difficult times ahead as new relationships are forged with the bloc and nations beyond. Since then, though, no meat has been added to the bones of May’s promise, nor has there been any indication of when she will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty so the extrication process can get underway.
Largely because of the lack of political guidance thus far, key seafood industry players have understandably been jostling to push their own agendas to positions of prominence – ready for as and when the redesign of the country’s fisheries management policy begins in earnest.
There’s also growing interest in seafood issues from outside the industry, most recently from free-market think tank Adam Smith Institute (ASI) in the form of a new report written by its president, Madsen Pirie, in which he calls on the U.K. government to take back control of the country’s waters and bring an end to the billions of fish thrown back dead into the sea each year through the EU’s landing obligation.
In the report, Pirie lays out a 10-point plan for ways in which the industry can capitalize on Brexit, while also highlighting the “damage” caused by the E.U. Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which it claims include allowing 80 percent of fish caught in U.K. waters to be netted by foreign boats, and resulted in 1.7 million metric tons (MT) of edible fish being discarded at sea last year.
“The EU’s policy on discards is an example of regulation, well intended, but disastrous in practice,” states the report. “It took a decade from when the problem was identified for the E.U. to come up with legislation to deal with it, and even then this was diluted by so many let-out clauses as to make it ineffective in many eyes.”
In addition to an extension of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from 12 miles to the 200 miles from U.K. shores, ASI’s proposals include a ban on fishing in U.K. waters without specific consent and a requirement for all boats to be registered, as well as the creation of both a Maritime Research Institute and a National Fisheries Council that would, among other things, monitor all fish stocks, record all U.K. catches and assign divisible and tradable quota to each registered vessel.
ASI stipulates that both councils should also be required to publish all their information online, accessible to members of the public as well as to the industry.
The institute reckons its plan gives the United Kingdom a blueprint to reshape its entire fishing industry in the wake of its decision to leave the E.U., as well as the chance to establish a policy that will make its fishing “a viable and profitable enterprise” and one that can ensure “the catch of today will be followed by a continuing catch of tomorrow.”
According to ASI, the United Kingdom should follow the lead of Norway and Iceland and create a policy that accounts for both environmental and commercial interests. As non-E.U. members, neither country is subject to the CFP. Instead, they both have dynamic quota systems in place that enable their fleets to quickly react to stock fluctuations. New Zealand is also praised as a fishing nation that has protected its stocks while building up its economic performance.
“The U.K. now has the chance to marry commercial interests with environmental ones, and to implement a fishing policy that will make U.K. fishing into a sustainable industry as well as a profitable one,” the report said. “It can harness the interests of its fishermen to preserving and protecting their future livelihood by giving them an ownership stake in the fish that swim in our waters.”
With virtually all questions surrounding Brexit and the future of commercial fishing and the broader seafood supply chain remaining open, the only certainty is that the longer we’re all left in the dark, the more the conjecture will escalate.
[Editor's note: SeafoodSource will host a webinar, "The good, the bad and the ugly: Brexit and the future of the U.K.'s fisheries," featuring SeafoodSource Contributing Editor Jason Holland, the author of this commentary, and Bertie Armstrong, the presidenr of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, on 20 September.]
